Your Official With Leather WWE Payback 2014 Predictions

WWE Payback 2014, aka “WrestleMania 30 Par 3,” comes to you live on pay-per-view (on the WWE Network) this Sunday, June 1, from the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. The show is headlined by Daniel Bryan not defending the WWE World Heavyweight Championship as well as a six-man elimination tag team match between The Shield and Evolution. On the pre-show, midgets fight to literally save face.

What Should Happen: Hornswoggle and El Torito tore the house down with WWE ELL SEE SEE MATCH before Extreme Rules, so we should get more of the same here. Oddly enough, with all the ass-based jokes and THESE AREN’T EVEN REAL PEOPLE MAGGLE commentary, the Torito/Hornswoggle beef has remained compelling … I think everyone in the world expects Hornswoggle to lose here, so Horny eats it and loses his hair. The only reason a wrestler grows his hair out like that is to lose a hair match, right? Hornswoggle can sacrifice the flippy emo hair in favor of the blonde buzzcut that brought him to the game, and El Torito can escape without losing another body part.

If we want to be frank about what “should” happen, Hornswoggle and Torito should do a big dive to the outside that takes out the entire announce table, and Raw starts on Monday with JBL apologizing for not thinking short people were real.

What Will Happen: I don’t see this living up to WeeLC, but the drama should be good. You know, if they play it up as actual drama and not as pretend storytime. How great would it be if the match ended up being an old school lucha bloodbath, with Hornswoggle tearing up Torito’s mask and striking a gusher? That’d be the greatest thing in the world. Look for NOT that to happen, and for some butts to be slapped, or whatever.

1. Big E vs. Rusev (with Lana)

What Should Happen: A non-finish. Rusev has been built up well as a guy who mauls nobodies and Big E is dangerously close to BEING a nobody, so this should be built around portraying the men as violent, hossy equals. That’s what I want to see. If you have to go the “double count-out, fight to the back” route, so be it. If Big E’s gonna lose to Rusev — and for all intents and purposes, he will — he should go down swinging and take a chunk of Rusev with him.

What Will Happen: This has GOT to be good, especially on a show with Sheamus vs. Cesaro. These guys are in desperate need of making a true name for themselves beyond their original mini-pushes, so they’ve got to go all out and really leave it all in the ring. I’m actually going to predict Big E gets the win here, because why not? An unbeatable monster only gets you so far these days. If you’ve got a small amount of vulnerability and can stay away from “big freak loses to everybody” Great Khali/Viscera/Big Show territory, you’re on the right path.

Seriously though, they need to tear it up.

2. WWE Divas Championship Match: Paige (c) vs. Alicia Fox

What Should Happen: Here’s the problem with Payback: a lot of the matches are retreads of decisions already made, and the ones that aren’t feels like decisions that aren’t READY to be made. Big E vs. Rusev is one of them. They built that feud up over what, two weeks and some aggressive flag waving?

Paige vs. Alicia Fox is another. Paige is still figure out who she is as a main roster performer, but she’s got the Divas Championship. Alicia Fox has come into her own as a fully-formed, fully-realized wrestling personality, but she’s been losing matches clean on Raw. Should Paige win and nerf Alicia’s momentum, or should Alicia win and make everyone involved look bad because the loser beat the hot new champion?

I don’t want to predict a non-finish for all of these matches, but something like a DQ win for Paige makes sense. Alicia can “win” the fight, but be so hopped up on goofballs that she does it in the worst way, walking away without the belt. That’s really all I can think of that makes sense without sacrificing what they’ve started to build. 50/50 overprotected booking is the worst.

What Should Happen: bahbahbahbahbahbahbahbah BAAOOOMMMMMM, Dog Boner, decisive pay-per-view victory for the champ.

What Will Happen: It feels like a few of these championships are gonna change hands tonight, and Wade Barrett’s previous runs with the IC strap haven’t instilled me with a great sense of confidence. I’m hoping he takes it, but it’ll be competitive. Van Dam’s been extremely hit or miss lately but BNB’s been on a roll, so maybe it’ll even out and we’ll get something watchable. If Van Dam simply decides to no-sell everything 12 minutes in, get his shit in and cleanly win, I’m going to flip a table.

4. United States Championship Match: Sheamus (c) vs. Cesaro

What Should Happen: The match of the night. These guys can blow you away when the chemistry is right, and while their previous singles matches haven’t totally lived up to my brain’s hype, this is their biggest showcase singles match yet. It’s a bigger stage, featuring two guys who can make the most of it. No matter who wins, I want to walk away from this saying, “wow, these guys beat the SHIT out of each other.”

What Will Happen: A Brogue Kick. It’s hard to pick anything else for a Sheamus match.

This is another weird one, where both guys have had runs with the United States Championship and are more or less “above” it, but there’s no room in the main event (especially not with the injured champ somehow retaining two championships simultaneously), so we might as well do something. I’d like for this to be another important step in legitimizing the secondary titles, and if Sheamus wins, it should be a narrow victory. Cesaro’s partnership with Paul Heyman still doesn’t make a lot of sense in that Heyman appears to have dulled Cesaro’s colors a little … let’s beat each other up and give Heyman a reason to be there, okay? That’s really all we need. Punches to the face and a lot of yelling and face-mugging, occasionally about His Client Brock Lesnar.

5. Last Man Standing Match: John Cena defeats Bray Wyatt

What Should Happen: Bray kills John Cena dead, Cena leaves for several months to film Legendary 2: The Legend Continues and Bray learns that there are several public domain church songs and that you can sing more than one. I’ve lost faith in John being taken through some dramatic character change via this feud, so I’d kinda just like him to lose and step aside for a while. Very far aside, so that when Stephanie McMahon’s all WHO WANTS TO BE THE NEW WWE CHAMP he doesn’t hear it.

What Will Happen: JOHN CENA MELODRAMA. Last Man Standing matches are where Cena is at his scenery-chewing worst, being tied to the ringpost and beaten like Jesus or wrapping duct tape around peoples’ ankles to beat them. Cena will be “clever” with the most violent use of quotation marks ever, and Bray will lose badly.

Note: If I say Bray will lose badly and he doesn’t, I’ll be happily surprised. If I say he will lose badly and he does, I’ve lowered my expectations and won’t be all Internet butthurt about it when it happens.

What Should Happen: Is this the trigger pulling on The Shield breakup? Is that a thing I have to bring up every Shield match from now until it happens?

They’ve done a suspicious amount of interviews lately about how they haven’t changed since becoming good guys and how they’re gonna stay together forever, so it feels like the right time to have one of them be a butt and jump ship. Evolution needs four guys, and the tease that the Shield will never tag together again after what happens to them at Payback seems like a grand indicator that Triple H will be “right,” but in a way we aren’t expecting.

So … Roman?

What Will Happen: This (along with Sheamus/Cesaro) is a guaranteed great match, so I’m looking forward to it no matter what. Additionally, I will laugh out loud if Batista gets triple powerbombed five minutes in and spends the rest of the match backstage wiping himself with a laundry basket full of towels.

It’s probable that Ambrose is turning, as he referred to Reigns and Rollins as his former partners in next month’s magazine. Or at the very least they’re losing and being forced to split up. Which makes total sense. I mean, if Stephanie can fire Brie over her husband’s actions, she can certainly enforce a PFA on the Shield.

People who post spoilers are the worst. I don’t understand the mentality. If someone is interested in finding out the latest spoilers, they can find them for themselves. It’s not hard. I don’t get people who feel like they have to be town criers about it.

Maybe they could have everyone huddle around El Torito after the match and switch him out with a dummy, so when Hornswoggle tears off his mask, it’s just a bloody, meaty bull’s skull, and everyone learns a lesson about the fine line that separates fantasy and reality, and comedy and tragedy.

I hope that Big E wins after he goes for his through the ropes spear, Rusev dodges, and Big E accidentally knock’s Lana the fuck out, Rusev stands around looking confused with no orders, eventually powers down, and Big E just shoves him over and pins a comatose Rusev.

Onto Fox and Paige, I feel like a double count-out brawl like Sheamus and Cesaro on Main Event would be a good finish. Their rivalry could be hot and could use a shot of Paige joining in. Fox dominates early, Paige gets angry, they fight on the outside, rematch at MITB is Falls Count Anywhere.

I love Paige, man. I really do. but I’m kinda forgetting why, exactly, other than that she’s so young and beautiful, and that she kicks hard in matches… because I haven’t seen or heard much from her lately. and I don’t think she addressed her feud with Alicia in any way other than watching her beat Emma on some screen backstage AND THAT’S IT.

if micheal cole had quoted her feelings on the matter during the past month or so, forgive me for not paying attention. and also don’t blame me because I HATE (with a passion) how wrestlers nowadays don’t get to speak for themselves except very rarely or in 1/2-minute short backstage segments, and instead we only get micheal cole telling us what they said.

I need a paige/alicia face off (to talk) for once at least before I get interested in this feud, and so yes, it shouldn’t end here in anyway.

What would be kind of neat, but will never happen, would be if John Cena just gets all dejected about something or other(probably the audience singing) and is like fine guys I quit and then does the sad Charlie Brown walking away thing, preferably to the song.

Doesn’t Batista have to leave to promote his movie soon? Isn’t that the main reason for the “you’ll never see the Shield vs. Evolution” again talk?

And what about Triple H? I don’t imagine he wants to maintain an in-ring schedule like this any longer.

I guess what I’m saying is I’d be surprised if the Shield lost/broke up on Sunday. Obviously it will happen eventually, but with the void created by Bryan’s injury I can’t imagine the WWE wants more upheaval at the moment. Plus, as we’ve all seen, Reigns and Rollins still need Ambrose to talk for them…

I’ve really been on the fence about watching this event (no, I don’t have the Network). On one hand, I’d hate to miss a Cesaro vs. Sheamus match. And the Shield vs. Evolution match should be really good, even though I’m strongly expecting either a double-cross, or Reigns vs. all three members of Evolution.

But I know Cena vs. Wyatt is just going to make me angry. And if Paige doesn’t *at least* get to look like an actual wrestler at some point during her match, I might throw something at the TV.

Just skip Cena/Wyatt. I do these days. It’s not worth the headache, even if Wyatt “wins”.

Some people have fantasy booked Brie vs Stephanie for the right for Daniel to keep his title. That would essentially mean Brie would be defending the WWE Championship. Would that interest you? Even a consistent Bella denouncer like me would have a hard time not cheering Brie in such a situation.

John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt (Last Man Standing) = Wyatt. I’m picking Wyatt because I’m terrified that this feud isn’t over yet. Wyatt winning would allow it to continue on in perpetuity. Plus, this is the easiest gimmick match for a man with 2 giant cultists to win; there’s absolutely nothing keeping them out of play, and all three guys can just wail on Cena until he’s dead. I’m sure the Usos will get involved, but I wouldn’t put money on them cancelling out the Wyatts in a no holds barred non-match environment.

United States Championship: Sheamus (c) vs. Cesaro = Sheamus. Similar to the above, in that Sheamus holding the US title is supposed to elevate it, but also because Cesaro is poised to leap out of the midcard and a US title reign would just be an anchor.

Divas Championship: Paige (c) vs. Alicia Fox = Paige. Being champion is the only reason she’s on the main roster. She hasn’t really been given the time to establish herself as “the diva that actually wrestles”, so being champion is all she’s got right now.

Pre-Show Match: El Torito vs. Hornswoggle (Mask vs. Hair) = El Torito. I find them much more willing to get rid of Hornswoggle’s hair, which has been really short before and is not an important part of his character, than El Torito’s mask, which is totally supposed to be his FACE, whoever booked this stupid stipulation! This is the first ever hair vs FACE match, and even though it plays into how hateful and hardcore this feud has become, they’re not going to have someone’s face torn off on a PPV.

See, the sad thing is that The Usos “interfering” would be a great idea. It would prove Cena’s point that Bray’s message won’t affect everybody, it gives Cena a believable and fair win over Wyatt, and it sets up a Wyatt sweep of all wins at MITB. So of course that won’t happen.

I’m sure the Usos will get involved one way or another. They’ve got to feud with somebody over those tag titles,and there aren’t many other teams out there right now. Bray could very easily send his boys after the tag titles not because he wants title belts but to take something away from the Usos in retaliation for always getting in his business.

I’m not at all confident in my pick of Wyatt. Of the possible scenarios, I actually prefer “Cena just wins because Cena and the feud is over” to “Wyatt wins so the feud can keep going” because I am exhausted of this interminable nonsense between the two. But for some reason it feels like WWE isn’t done with this yet, so I pick the option that keeps it going. Because we all know that Cena never quits a rivalry until he’s won, definitively.

I’d like Evolution’s chances a lot more if it wasn’t an elimination style match. Those style matches usually require a single individual to look great as the sole survivor in order to prop him up for a future event. What good can it possibly do for Evolution to win? Batista is going away, Orton had his run at the top, and HHH wouldn’t put himself over his baby the Shield just to prop up his ego right?? RIGHT??? Ugh, maybe Brandon should just change it to Evolution defeats the Shield. That said, I think Reigns gets the standing tall moment.

Gotta say I believe Reigns sole survives just like he did at Survivor Series last year to give him the rub. Batista leaves for his movie stuff and HHH puts together a new Evolution to combat the Shield, which is when Evolution will get their wins back and revitalize the feud. Dunno if Orton will be in the new stable or not but I expect Sheamus to replace Batista and continue Dean’s beef with him over the US Title.